Thin Line
by Random One-Shot
Summary: The dividing line between love and hate is hard to see, much less understand. [He runs through the rain and tries not to think about how each breath might be her last]


_To any readers who are keeping track of __Just A Nobody, __or (s__omeone give me review for this. Someone. ANYWHERE?!) __If Boys Were Meant To Fly__, I promise to update one of them sometime soon. In the meantime, this was drilling at the back of my brain for a while and I wanted to get it out. _

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Disclaimer 

_I, Random One-Shot, do not own any of the characters, concepts or lands in this fic. I'm just using them for my own amusement._

_And of course, to get reviews._

_Yummy reviews._

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Her hands are pinching his fur, nearly ripping it loose from his skin, but he doesn't care. It means she is still alive. Pain is life. How well he has learned that lesson. No matter how much it hurt, or burned, or stabbed, or smashed, all pain was welcome because it meant that **he was still alive**. 

She is strong.

He wonders at her will to live, to draw in more air -

_(And he wants to scream 'stop breathing that! It isn't for you, not this kind of air!' but of course, he can't.)_

- even as it must surely be a chore to simply hold herself together in this world, the world of light that she should not be in. The dark imp is a shadow, was **his** shadow, the water to his fire, but light and shadow should never **touch**.

And now she is weakening with every second, being murdered by the world he has sworn to protect.

He runs and runs and runs and thanks whatever Gods or Goddesses -

_(Because really, how can he trust anything anymore with all that has happened?)_

- that created the world for making the wolf a hardy creature. He can run for hours, for a whole day, and not feel less for it when he must move again. He uses this beast shell -

_(Or, as he has lately come to wonder, is it his two leg form that is the façade?)_

- to move in the loping sprint of the canine family. Up and down, up and down, smooth and rolling, never slipping, never _jostling_, because dear Goddesses, _if she __**fell**_….

She coughs and he twitches an ear back to listen in. It doesn't happen again and he pulls his attention back to his footing, because the ground is soft and muddy from the rain. Four legs are not infallible.

He thought she was. She was the slave driver that had set him on this wild nightmare to begin with. Taunting him, teasing him, ordering him, _maddening him_ with little bits of information that he _knew_ were connected to the whole. But she would _never _tell him the whole, oh no. That would make him a disobedient doggy. Bite the hand that feeds and all that.

He tried to bite her once. Not the frightened snarls when he was in the castle dungeon, but true red-blooded murder. She _put him down_, those are the only words that fit. Sizzling magic, the taste of something powerful in the air, and then he was on his back, staring at the sky and her hated white and black face leering down at him.

'_Naughty little mongrel, aren't you?'_

She mocked him, always jeering at his abilities no matter what the situation. Crawling through the biggest tree in the forest, crossing the Twilight drenched land, meeting his children, cleaning out the mines, finding _Ilia_ without her fucking _memory_, and killing a titan so deep under water that the sun could never reach and _she never said something nice even once!_

Errand boy.

'_Like a servant, you'll have to do exactly as I say.' _

He hates her. Oh Goddesses, he hates her so much that it _hurts!_ The urge to just sink his fangs into her flesh and shake and tear and rip and _taste _her blood and hear her screams and know that, if only for a second, _she _is hurting more then_ him_, _he_ is the one making _her_ miserable….

She rattles on his back, her lungs whirling air in and out audibly, like the blades on a windmill.

She is hurting.

He hates that too.

Rusl told him things, many things. About the forest, about the soul.

'_Love and hate are so close together Link. The line that divides them is finer then a hair. You can spend your whole life hating someone and when they finally die, you will wonder why it feels so painful.' _

Ilia told him things, simple things. Honest things and childish things.

'_It is a lot harder to __**like**__ someone then it is to love someone. With like, you have to know the person, all that makes them them. You have to know it and accept it_ _and cherish it as you cherish yourself. You have to forgive them when they mess up. Love is a lot simpler, but a lot stronger. You can stop liking someone, but love is forever. You don't need to like someone to love them. You don't even need to know them. Love is like hate. You either have it or you don't, and you are aware of it or you are not. But it is always there either way, even if it takes a while to find.' _

He hates the frail, foul, spiteful, twisted, nightmare creature that presses down on his back.

He loves the brave, proud, powerful, intelligent woman who clings to him like he is a lifeline, and he is.

_When did he start loving her? _

Run, run, run, run, run, run.

The pain in his forehead is growing with every leap and bound that he takes. A red-hot coal has been buried under his fur and flesh and bone and pressed deep into his brain. He can feel it behind his eyes, searing away at the gray matter and keeping him in this wild shape. It feels like her magic, when she _put him down._

The castle, he has to get to the castle.

Why does she stay with him, hurting him and driving him like she does? There are others better suited to the task of saving the freaking world.

Oh, scratch that. She just wants the Fused Shadows. Silly him.

Hyrule being restored is a simple side effect. All she really wants is to get her magic artifacts, liquefy Zant, and skip off to do whatever it is wicked little imps do in their spare time. Never mind that it means going up against someone who threw a Light Spirit, capitals on both letters, in his own domain like rag doll. Never mind that the freak was strong enough wrap an entire country in an alternate dimension.

Stupid fucking idiot, _this was all her fault!_

She chooses him from a kennel like a puppy for sale and brings him along in her insane quest to get an account squared with a lunatic who enjoyed being dressed like a lightening rod, makes him fight things from nightmares, and with every step, drives him further and further and _further_ from himself until he barely remembers the rancher who Rusl asked to go to the castle on a delivery.

He can never go back to that.

Screw the Light Spirits; he is no fucking legendary hero. It is her fault, her doing that made him this. She wanted a servant? Well congratu-god-damn-lations towards the little bitch, because she got one, complete with sword and shield.

Fangs and furriness optional.

Panting now, -

_(How long has he been running? The landscape is blurring together.) _

- he tops a hill and starts down the slope and, lo and behold, there is Hyrule Castle.

She must see it too, because her breathing hitches a moment before settling back into the rasping rhythm that is grating his sensitive ears. Even as she is dying, she annoys him. That is so like her.

He runs, moving as fast and as smooth as he can. Mustn't let her fall. Goddesses forbid that she fall. He isn't sure she could crawl back onto his back again and he hasn't the hands to help her and she'd die out here in the field and he would be alone and trapped as a wolf and _he would be without her!_

'_Take me to Princess Zelda. You must!' _

Orders.

Good dogs obey.

He runs.

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_Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person_

_James Thurber and E.B. White_

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Okay, my reasons for doing this: _

_I never could quit wondering how long it took Link to completely accept his feelings for Midna. It is really hard to love, and even harder to like, someone who uses you in such a manner. _

_Think about it. She treats him like dirt up until her near death experience: changing into Colin and Ilia, who were violently kidnapped right in front of Link, dragging him all over Hyrule without explaining why, making him fight a whole bunch of crazy monsters, constantly belittling and taunting him, even when he finally finds the kids and Ilia, who has amnesia. Midna is like the annoying itch between your shoulder blades that you can't get rid of._

_To her credit, she does loosen up after Zelda's sacrifice, but it was still two or four weeks worth of aggravation for Link, who was already stressed. _

_As for Link himself, I think I got his personality well enough. He is only mortal, and it is natural to want to blame someone when something really bad happens. In this case, Midna __**was**__ a contributing factor to the whole save-Hyrule-or-everyone-will-be-lost-forever scenario. With no one else around for him to turn to, and with her constantly rubbing his fur the wrong way (sometimes literally), she received his ire. _


End file.
